Saturday, July 21, 2012

Another Reason Not to Try

Hmmmm....

Don't bother with college.  Live on the cheap.  Avoid children, avoid a house you can't afford. Find some construction job somewhere.  Avoid office politics.  Avoid college debt. All the extra free time and savings and commensurate fun

vs.

Endebt yourself for the next decade, get a degree that won't get you a job, but if you get a masters AND 47 industrial certifications, you can "battle for a $35,000/yr office job" where you get to deal with politics, crushing government regulations and the constant fear one of those other college-educated employees with their sense of entitlement will take umbrage to a conversation they were not part of, filing a harassment complaint.

Choose.

14 comments:

Carnivore said...

Here's another reason - one can make more panhandling:

http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/okc/Panhandler-arrested-claims-to-have-made-60-000-last-year/-/11777584/15620916/-/o4flxb/-/index.html

MagicMarker said...

FYI, these days you can CELP out of a degree.

http://personalmba.com/hacking-higher-education-clep/

MagicMarker said...

These days the smart can CELP out of a whole degree:

http://personalmba.com/hacking-higher-education-clep/

You can even test out of a CIS degree (You'll have to take 4 classes to make is a CS degree)

MagicMarker said...

These days the smart can CELP out of a whole degree:

http://personalmba.com/hacking-higher-education-clep/

You can even test out of a CIS degree (You'll have to take 4 classes to make is a CS degree)

Anonymous said...

Good advice. That would be my do over..learn the trades from the ground up and become a builder.

astrodominant said...

Energy industry. Male dominated because it is challenging and hard work. It is worldwide so you are available and work 24/7. If you can deal with that it pays damn good and this is the least PC business on the planet.

Izanpo said...

Cappy....Mark Steyn gives you a nod in his most recent column.

On the evidence of last week's Republican campaign events, President Obama's instant classic – "You didn't build that" – is to Mitt Romney what that radioactive arachnid is to Spider-Man: It got under his skin, and, in an instant, the geeky stiff was transformed into a muscular Captain Capitalism swinging through the streets and deftly squirting his webbing all over Community-Organizerman.

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-364707-build-golden.html

Anonymous said...

Good advice, really once you think about it.

Anonymous said...

Entrepreneurship.... Option C.

OldBoy said...

I would have choosen the OU (http://www.open.ac.uk/). Well, OK,I didn't choose that when I went to uni but since I'm looking at getting a hobby degree (European classical history), that would have been my goto choice. It would cost £12.5K ($20K) over 5 years as a part time student.

Not sure if I will part with that much money though. I'm interested in the subject and have 20 years worth of books to prove it. Still a lot of Money. A few thoughts:

1 ) 12-18 months ago I could have booked the course for around £6K

2) The British state is bankrupt, they where the major subsidiser of the OU, It looks like the OU has to now pay it's way.

3) The OU has it's own campus and a lot of degrees require sometime on campus, seems like the liberal arts stuff is subsidising the STEM degrees.

4) Part time in OU speak means you can work, raise a family, go out and have fun with your mates and then spend part of your time getting a degree.

5) Given that (4) is true, something like half of all MBAs in the UK are awarded by the OU and I know people who have got degrees in statistics, mathematics and biology as part time OU students. What justification can there be for paying more?

6) Maybe you could write a book about worthless and hobby degrees. That is, a book that shows which degrees are truly worthless in that you will loose money by studying while not learning anything (Psychology, women's studies) and degrees that one should think of as a hobby where you will spend money and learn something with no expectation of it leading to gainful employment or riches (Puppetry, Gender bias in mathematics (I'm assuming a need to learn maths), anything that's called an art).

Thane Eichenauer said...

Avoid children? Is the outlook on the future so very bleak that one should avoid their creation?

Thane Eichenauer said...

Avoid children? Is the outlook on the future so very bleak that one should avoid their creation?

Seerak said...

Good advice. That would be my do over..learn the trades from the ground up and become a builder.

I was considering this one, as many of the trades are especially undersupplied in both the US and Canada. I was warned off, though, by one caveat: most of the trades, being older professions, are ravaged by unions and sclerotic government regs.

That said, I don't know how that varies across particular trades, unions and states. I also expect that the market for many trades is smoking in the Dakotahs, Montana and Alberta.

Lib Arts Major Making $27k/yr At An Office Job said...

Option A and enjoy the decline.